Ardoyne Youth Club

Duncan and I are facilitating a workshop in Ardoyne the aim of which is to repaint the entrance to the centre with the groups and Youth Workers ideas.

Natasja Boeze and Others

The backyard hooch
The original(& smallest) backyard hooch. A 6' by 6' floor area provides just enough room for a sleep out. The single point foundation does not impede on limited backyard space. Cables to surrounding trees make the hooch extremely stable.




Medaillons in Trees
A small wood, planted with beech trees, was recently laid out on the property of ’s Koonings Jaght. Boezem hung ten oval portrait medallions on these trees at varying heights with the help of steel clasps. Both sides of the medallions feature photographic portraits of twenty different residents of the institute. The faces are set against a brightly colored background and each medallion is fitted with a light and a speaker. The sounds that the speakers transmit are, among others, made up of residents telling stories, playing the piano or singing. The sounds are usually not directly linked to one of the portraited individuals.
From a central location in the forest a mechanism can be activated that causes the medallions to light up, either in a set series or in random order. The sounds displace themselves according to their own pattern and are independent of the light pattern. In this way the wood becomes a crisscross of patterns with illuminated photo portraits and the murmuring voices of residents.
Natasja Boezem’s work functions in a variety of ways. As visitors to the ’s Koonings Jaght set foot on the premises, they are immediately introduced to its residents. These, in turn, give a proud impression to the visitors since it is their park and their home.
Visitors may also experience the work on different levels. Strong visual impulses are elicited by the colorful medallions, the lights that flicker on and off in different locations and the recognition of the people on the portraits. The sounds also have a powerful effect. In one place a singing voice is heard, in another someone is playing the piano and in yet another someone is telling a story. For some listeners the recognition of the sound is also a contributing factor. Through the continual flickering of light and displacing of sound, the residents’ environment is enriched with an inviting ambience. Furthermore it is an exciting experience for residents to press the button that activates the light.

In creating this work, Natasja Boezem was inspired by the history of art. During the Renaissance medallions were fixed to the ‘Palazzi’ of well-known families (such as the Strozzi, De Medici and Becai families). These medallions were made by artists and featured portraits of the ‘Palazzis’ residents who proudly displayed themselves to the general public, thereby expressing their power and influence. Incidentally we also have a similar tradition in Northern Europe in the form of portrait galleries.

Koonings Jaght and Het Dorp, which are both located in Arnhem, are a part of the Siza Dorp Groep, an organization that supports disabled individuals. More than 1,600 individuals who are physically or mentally disabled or have non-hereditary brain damage are cared for by 2,500 staff members who work in over 60 locations in Gelderland.
www.sizadorpgroep.nl

‘The Unknown Image’ by Allen Ruppersberg (photo: Ton Aartsen)

Beyond-Leidsche Rijn: Parasite Paradise

From 1 August until late September 2003 Leidsche Rijn held the exhibition, Parasite Paradise. Near to the Leidsche Rijn’s Information Center, which is located on the Verlengde Vleutenseweg, one could visit a settlement made up of around twenty mobile units. These units were created by domestic and international artists and represent small-scale, artistic, architectural and urban developmental works that make a playful yet serious comment on systematic urbanization.

Miele Space Station, 2012 Architecten (photo: Ralph Kämena)

Playgrounds in Hoogvliet

Report of a workshop on Playgrounds in Hoogvliet

A large portion of Holland’s available housing is located in the large-scale, quickly-built modern residential areas that were built shortly after the Second World War and are, meanwhile, in need of massive renovation. Such a large-scale renovation of postwar residential areas forces one to contemplate the use of public space. The method used with Rotterdam’s residential area, Hoogvliet, is a good example of this. It is one of the first projects that SKOR was involved in. The study ‘The World is my Playground’ unites theory and practice, creating a scenario for the development of a ‘play network’. The project approaches the playground from a town planning perspective and aims to put the matter of designing a playground high on the agenda. Hoogvliet served as one of their case studies.
SKOR contributed by organizing a workshop that took place on 13 and 14 December. Gatherings of people from diverse fields of expertise were invited to come up with ideas for the potentialities and different functions of the open space in general and, more specifically, for playgrounds. Participants of the workshop included legal philosopher Gijs van Oenen (University of Rotterdam), ecologist Matthijs Schouten (University of Wageningen) and visual artists Dan Peterman (Chicago), Ingo Vetter (Berlin) and Nils Norman (London). Together with Hoogvliet’s administrators and officials, the Playgrounds researchers and SKOR’s representatives, they explored the parks and nine districts that make up Hoogvliet and took part in a round table discussion.

Recently artist Nils Norman did research on what he personally calls ‘adventure playgrounds’. These are playgrounds that offer a large amount of space for unforeseen usage. He delved into the history of the development of playgrounds since the 1930’s and made sketches of this. Recently in the late modernist town planning - particularly in England and Germany – playgrounds that have been designed and furnished by children are being realized. However, due to increasing liability issues and regulations it is becoming increasingly difficult to assign children a role in the design process. According to Norman the foremost meaning of these places is that of the ‘ecological niche’ as they are often valuable habitats that hardly change during extended periods of time. Only their surroundings alter.

Ingo Vetter studied two places that had been ‘squatted’ and serve as examples of spontaneous urban agriculture. One of these was an undeveloped plot of land close to the Berlin Wall that was already squatted back in 1971. It was here that a type of children’s farm emerged as a result of the surrounding inhabitants who started keeping chickens, goats and pigs etc. on the property. The area was used by a variety of groups at varying times and the users themselves performed the maintenance. The other example is the dilapidated and deserted city center of Detroit. After the collapse of the automobile industry when nobody took responsibility for the inner city anymore, it was only the poor who continued to live in this neighborhood while the rich departed for the suburbs. People began to farm the unclaimed land not in order to survive but, rather, as a symbolic statement that demonstrated that this was their land and that they would use it as such. Based on these examples, Vetter would rather have no physical products developed for Hoogvliet that fix the land’s usage but, instead, create conditions that allow exceptional and unforeseen usage.

Dan Peterman is more interested in the organic processes of urban society than in the isolated concept of the ‘playground’. He is a long time resident of Chicago and lives on the border of a wealthy area and an underprivileged neighborhood. Like an isolated enclave, the University of Chicago is located next to this area. After his studies at the art faculty of this university, Peterman joined a group that created all kinds of artistic interventions that served to improve the neighborhood and its community life. He was, among others, involved in the establishment of shops that recycle materials. Peterman is mainly interested in the conditions that instigate all kinds of processes that are, in turn, added to the existing local complexity. With his interventions he consistently makes use of the available resources and the existing conditions. In this way, Peterman tries to find alternative models for developing and stimulating organic processes that are in contrast to systematic processes in which everything has been predetermined.

According to ecologist Matthijs Schouten - who, in addition to his ecological research also researched the perception of landscape – there are basically two types of distinguishable landscapes: the natural landscape and the semi-natural landscape. The first type includes ‘wild’ nature whereas the second type is represented by the (agri) cultural landscape. He connects both types to the Nietzchian dichotomy of Dionysian vs. Apollonian. In this way the first is natural and unconnected to space and time and the second is semi-natural, having come forth through the interaction with humans. The latter type which is connected to space and time, gives one a sense of harmony and serenity. In other words the relation between the geomorphology and the history of habitation is imaginable and the landscape can be read like a book. According to Schouten, the riverbank forest that surrounds Hoogvliet refers to the Dionysian landscape whereas the old village center (formerly a fishing port) refers to the Apollonian landscape with its recognizable topographical human touches including the dyke, the church and the pattern of streets. In Hoogvliet he distinguishes a third type, namely, the rational landscape. Schouten suggests that many of the green open spaces that are hardly used as public spaces should be better utilized in order to allow new experiences to come about. In doing so, one should make use of the geomorphology so that the landscape can become readable again.

Philosopher Gijs van Oenen does not agree with the basic principle of Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and he considers this book to be old-fashioned and boring. In his opinion, people do not essentially need to ‘play’. One should actually see playing as a specific feature that can offer a solution to certain issues and problems in contemporary society. As such he considers Nieuw Babylon (New Babylon), which is based on Huizinga’s homo ludens concept, to be a good example of a bad idea. On the basis of Huizinga’s book the artist, Constant, differentiates between two domains, namely, the domain in which the production of necessities is realized and the domain of free time or relaxation. According to Gijs van Oenen this dichotomy becomes highly problematic when there is no connection between the two domains. In the town planning of the 1960s and 1970s, the divisions between working, living and free time bore significant consequences. Public and private functions were divided, separated and, literally, worked out on different levels. The Bijlmer is a famous example of this and, in Hoogvliet, this disconnection of different domains can also be seen. According to Gijs van Oenen one should not view ‘playing’ as the highest level but, rather, as a possibility to connect different levels with each other, similar to the negotiations that take place between the public and private aspects of life.

Since the 1970s, people have become more individualistic. They no longer form a homogenous community but are, instead, autistic and behave as such. Van Oenen distinguishes three types of behaviors that are related to how people envisage themselves in the public space.
1. Nimby (not in my backyard): You are not involved. You appreciate public affairs but you cannot accept the negative consequences thereof. It’s all very well as long as it doesn’t bother you.
2. Capsular (see the publication Lieven de Cauter, De Capsulaire Samenleving, NAi Uitgevers): People who withdraw from public space and act as if they are not actually in it. An example is someone wearing a walkman in a train.
3. Interpassive: You notice your surroundings but are, simultaneously, connected to your personal life. An example is someone using their cell phone in the train. You are aware of the public life but, because you are in connection with your private life, you don’t have (or want) any interaction with it. These three phenomena have dramatically altered the public space. Gijs van Oenen proposes transitional spaces or ‘playgrounds’ that are informal and can forge a connection between the public and private life. The creating of this is, in itself, a type of game.

'The world is my playground' was made possible with the contribution of the Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur (Stimulation Fund for Architecture).
Check out www.speelwereld.nl and www.dollab.nl (click on ‘werk’ and ‘playgrounds’)

Architect Henk Doll - Playground
The design is based on a model of a world city, which has been made by children of the asylum seekers centre in Feilenoord and has been exposed in Villa Zebra. This model takes part in the education program Raise it up! which Gasia Grubba and Judith Varwerk have set up with the goal to let asylum seekers' children get to know the architecture from their home country and Rotterdam. The project is a great success. In the model of the world city 12 children have designed and created buildings in which different cultures are integrated. The goal of the Raise it up! - world playground is to design a distinguishing playground with references to different cultural statements.

Cees de Boer - Knowledge of nature

Basing himself on three art projects, Cees de Boer shows how knowledge and learning are brought into action in order to make the experience of the work of art more intense. To this end, the artist not only deploys the public as participant, but also becomes himself more and more a part of the ecological system that he investigates and makes visible in his work. In the Abri that Elsa Stansfield and Madelon Hooykaas made for the Prof. Van der Leeuw Foundation in Wijk aan Zee in 1995, the spectator is given the opportunity to become totally absorbed in individually experiencing sounds received by a dish antenna. In Herman de Vries’ Tuindorp collections for a housing development near Tilburg, an extensive collection of trees and shrubs becomes a sort of mat for the neighbourhood. Knowledge and experience of nature are thus introduced into an environment which otherwise admits of no connection at all. In the Sanctuarium that de Vries was commissioned by De Verbeelding to realise for the Artificial natural networks event in Zeewolde, nature is given a sanctuary where it can follow its own laws undisturbed. Managing and intervening in this area is made impossible; man is kept at a distance, and is left with the job of witnessing the process, which is what nature essentially is.

The Pad at Ulster Festival of Art & Design

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As part of the Ulster Festival of Art and Design I am offering people use of ‘The Hut’ free of charge. It will be situated in or around Buoy Park next to the Art College, from June 9th – 14th.

The Hut is a simple wooden box structure (60”x30”x30”) which can be transported in and around the park. There is a bench and table included. It can act as a hub for small-scale events, an information point, a selling cart, play space, a sleep out, exhibition space, small stage, outdoor screen, workshop space…the list is endless.

It will be available on site during the following times: 9th June: 6pm – 10pm 10th June: 10am – 6pm
11th June: 10am – 6pm
12th June: 10am – 10pm 13th June: 10am – 6pm 14th June: 10am – 1pm



To book please contact: Michelle Nolan E: micalene@gmail T: 079 ********

publicworks

public works is an art/architecture colletive consisting of architects Sandra Denicke-Polcher, Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and artist Kathrin Bohm, who have been collaborating in different constellations since 1998.

All public works projects address the question how users of public space are engaging with their environment and how design and programmatic strategies can support and facilitate physical, economical and social infrastructures in the public realm. public works’ art and architecture collaboration is using the methodology of art led processes to explore how existing social dynamics can inform spatial, architectural and urban proposals.

Granville Cube

Granville Cube constitutes the Public Art Programme that runs alongside the Granville New Homes Development, by Levitt Bernstein Architects in South Kilburn, between September 2005 and August 2007.

The Cube is a simple metal frame structure that will travel to various locations on and around the Granville New Homes site. The structure acts as a communication and facilitation devise on site, to host small-scale local events and to collect and stage ideas for the use of the public realm.

Polly Brannan is running a weekly on-site programme, ranging from Carroll Singing to Swap Shops, Flower Planting to Mega Fish Tanks. Simple add-ons can turn the cube into i.e. an exhibition space, small stage, outdoor screen, workshop space, etc.

All events and work in progress are announced on the billboard.
The cube will be on site until August 2007 and will be appropriated over time, turning into an archive and enactment of ideas for the public space in this area.

MOBILE PORCH started in Nov 99 as a temporary site-specific proposal for the public art program of NKAT, coordinated by Georgia Ward. MOBILE PORCH is a collaboration between the artists Kathrin Bšhm & Stefan Saffer and architect Andreas Lang.
Its initial idea was to create a tool that allows links between contemporary art practice and a local audience. During 2000 MOBILE PORCH developed also into a prototype for public sites.
It was designed in order to create an appropriate object for a public sphere that was multifunctional in its use and flexible in its purpose. MP is very clear and very ambiguous, in both its design and its purpose. Its full meaning and definition will be developed over time. MOBILE PORCH can be a shed, a reception desk, a stage, a bench, a lamp, a screen, a catwalk, a workshop, a vehicle, etc. MOBILE PORCH is a flexible structure that fulfills different functions according to the varying situations. It is both a physical structure but also a social one. It is an offer which provides a range of new possibilities.
During the two months residency at North Kensington Amenity Trust MOBILE PORCH was used by a large number of people on Trust land to create short term activities, organize social events or to drop ideas for further projects on site. MOBILE PORCH's presence created a strong feeling of curious interest from its first day on site, "whatsthatallabout". The information and experience gained during this projects is now being discussed as a possible relevant matter at NKAT, concerning further planning. MOBILE PORCH finished it's visit underneath the Westway on 01.01.2001.

Mobile Porch is a mobile mini-architecture designed for roaming the public sphere. It is an urban toy used to engage on a one to one level with the users and governing bodies of public sites. The observations and experiences collected during on-site residencies are a valuable source of information in regard to the state and potential of everyday situations and future policies/strategies. Mobile Porch was developed for the North Kensington Amenity Trust to roam its public domain. Everyone was invited to use it, to shape it, to mould it, and to temporarily own it.

The flexible design allows it to be transformed into a stage, a screen, a reception desk, a dinner table, a shop, an exhibition board, a workshop, a billboard, a hang-out… the possibilities are endless. By using this physical tool to examine the existing non-physical aspects in public spaces (such as lack of play space or platform for expression), we develop new ideas for the use of the neighbouring space.

The playfulness of Mobile Porch works on an one to one scale, allowing its users to express their ideas concerning public space through direct action and participation. What do people come up with when given a flexible space to play with?

Park Products
Kensington Gardens, London

A series of collaboratively produced products using resources found in Kensington Gardens to be exchanged in a non-monetary mini-economy during the summer 2004. Böhm and Lang have been artists-in-residence at the Serpentine Gallery and Kensington Gardens for one year, starting during Summer 2003. They have been working with the Royal Park’s rangers and gardeners, groups of park users, and the Serpentine’s gallery assistants to develop designs for products together with students at the Royal College of Art.

A ‘market stall’ – a folding, mobile trading platform designed by the artists – has been sited in various locations in the park during August and September 2004, where the products were on offer and circulated in a non-monetary mini-economy. The exchange was facilitated by various ‘currencies’ – tasks or actions that have been suggested by park staff or other groups – that are given a specific value to be exchanged for a specific product. The structure and the trading system supports a new social space in the park delineated by a network of previously unrelated groups. The products operate as ‘tools of contact’, mediating between the Gallery, the artists and the public.

Prototypes for 10 products have been produced and put into production. A catalogue containing images and information about each product and a text explaining the cultural and social context of the project will be available for sale. To download a pdf vesrion of the catalogue please click the icon below.

public works recently revisited the project and explored the spaces which were created by park products. The book is titled "If you can't find it, give us a ring." and contains an interview with Andreas Land & Kathrin Böhm of public works and an essay by Doina Petrescu, "Working towards a real public space". Click the icon below to download a pdf version of the artist pages or visit www.ixia-info.com to order a hardcopy of the compleete publication

Park Products catalogue	"If you can't find, give us a ring"

Edible Playground - Dorset

Schools get digging to turn playgrounds green

Children from four schools in West Dorset hope to grow edible plants in their playgrounds and learn how to prepare and cook them with help from local chefs. A new project called The Edible Playground is being launched in June, aiming to encourage young children to grow and nurture edible plants in their playgrounds. The simple aim of the project is to help young children to connect with food and to get real enjoyment out of turning their playgrounds into green areas, where food and growth go hand in hand. Local chefs will also visit schools to show the children how to prepare and cook plants they have grown. Currently four schools in West Dorset are getting involved; Beaucroft in Wimborne, Thornford Primary, Charmouth Primary and Witchampton Primary.

The children will be digging, planting, watering and nurturing edible plants in their playgrounds throughout the next few months and then some will get the chance to work with local chefs to prepare and eat the results.

Mike Burks of The Gardens Group, which is sponsoring The Edible Playground project, explained; “This project is a really practical way to get children to connect with the food they are eating – they’re not simply being presented with a pile of food and then cooking it. "They are improving the soil in plots in their playgrounds, choosing seed varieties, planting, feeding and watering and really learning how food grows before they finally cook and eat it. It is a pleasure to be involved with a project which is practical and hands-on and we look forward to seeing the results.”

Each school got a supply of equipment including compost, gardening tools, seeds, herb plants, watering cans and troughs. Project co-ordinator Nichola Motley. “The children will be growing lots of different varieties of herbs, lettuces, tomatoes and other quick growing crops. I am especially pleased that very young children are involved, as the sooner we teach children where their food comes from, the better their understanding and willingness to try new foods. "Some of the children will be visiting walled vegetable gardens to learn about crop rotation and even the youngest pupils will be involved in planting and watering.” The Edible Playground project is a new venture for Screen Bites; Dorset’s Food Film Festival and is also supported by Chalk & Cheese.

GETTING STARTED ON YOUR EDIBLE PLAYGROUND

Where to grow?
What to grow?
What kit will you need?

Check out:
www.rocketgardens.co.uk
www.crocus.co.uk

Rally the troops
You need four things to make your Edible Garden a success:

1. Motivation – get the whole school behind it, proud of it and pleased to part of it

2. Education – use it as a learning experience and a learning tool

3. Sustainability – plan ahead, start small, know what it’s going to cost

4. Support - cultivating people is as important as cultivating plants, and what you can achieve will depend on the level of support you get for the Edible Playground. So it may be worth asking an experienced gardener with tips to share and time to spare for a bit of help
(Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks will need to be carried out before they can start)).

More: Setting up and Running a School Garden,
by Agriculture and Consumer Protection

More: Check out the RHS School Gardening website also Playground Potting Sheds by Dominic Murphy

Citymine(d)

Playground

The collapsible playground transforms any piece of wasteland into a recreational area for children in no time.

To transform an abandoned piece of land into an area where children can enjoy themselves is often a time- and energy-consuming effort. When children have the idea to use an urban space as their playground, they want it to happen now. And that is what the collapsible playground can do. In 5 minutes children have their playing field, and asks attention for city-users below 5 years old.

The collapsible playground is a carrier tricycle with a slide, a merry-go-round, a seesaw, a swing and two small football goals and even comes with artificial grass. It probably takes an adult to ride the bicycle, and to help set up the playground, but from there on children can help themselves.

The collapsible playground is available in Brussels and has been used by groups who promote children’s rights and urban public space alike.

Limite Limite

Limite Limite was a landmark building, the start of a local coalition and a trademark for the Brabant neighbourhood in Brussels from 1999 to 2004.

Limite Limite turned an urgent need for green space into an opportunity to bring stakeholders together and to put the Brabant neighbourhood on the Regional agenda. Architect Chris Rossaert designed a highly visible 9-metre high translucent tower that protruded into the street, and that served as a meeting and exhibition space. Through Wijkpartenariaat local residents were involved in design and building process. APAJ, apprenticeship training that prepares local unemployed for jobs in the construction industry, trained a number of its students through raising the tower.

Construction and use of the building served as a catalyst to bring together disparate groups in the neighbourhood. JP Morgan Guarantee Trust Company financed the structure, but also took responsibility in keeping the new network together. A numer of local high schools –Vlekho, Sint-Lucas, Social Highschool- participated with their students in one or more stages of the project and local shopkeepers also took a place in the network.

The temporary tower had to make way for a more permanent building in 2004, but the organization, Limiet Limite vzw continued to work in the area, and the material and a number of partners took the project a step further in Relimite.

Pocket gardens

'Pocket gardens' are elevated public spaces and were present in the streets of Brussels from 15 August until 15 September 2004.

Because cars and their parking spaces take up most of the streets in inner city neighbourhoods, it has become very difficult for children to claim a space to play or for grown-ups to sit outside. Less space for unplanned encounter in a sense implies less 'city'. That is why Y. Denayer, R. Menestret and F. Fraeys developed 'pocket gardens'.

A pocket garden is a large strip, covered with a wooden terrace and accessible via a swimming pool ladder, and secured against falling of by a tennis-net around the sides. In the summer of 2004 six pocket gardens travelled through Saint-Josse and the City of Brussels. They were placed alongside the pavement and were freely accessible for local residents and passers-by. They were used to brunch, barbecue, dance, play theatre and even tan.

The pocket gardens were sponsored by the Fondation Roi Boudoin, hors categorie 2004 and the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.

Zebra

The portable zebra crossing helps pedestrians safely cross the road anywhere they want and make drivers reflect on how the city is structured while they wait.

The zebra crossing is one of the rare universal signs to make motor vehicles stop. Their characteristic of not-being-there-when-you need-one is probably as generally known. The portable zebra-crossing provides a solution to this acute need, and by shuffling the hierarchy of car over pedestrian raises issues of use of public space.

The portable zebra crossing consist of a slab of black plastic measuring (2 by 10 metres) with white rectangles painted upon them. It is not designed as a permanent solution to the absence of a safe way to cross the street, but rather as a way to brace the request for a more permanent solution.

The portable zebra crossings have successfully supported the demands from schools and youth clubs in Brussels, and are still being used to make a case for safer roads.

Four Days on the Outside

For 4 days on the outside project 6 architecture students made a work with or visible to people in Sheffield, UK, 2002.

“Encouraging more interaction between the university and its surroundings, discrete projects ran in various urban venues. City Mine(d) asked their participants to design and construct a structure made of old car tyres. Tackling issues of ownership, surveillance, transgression and citizenship, students explore the parameters of public space as they tried to site their sculpture at different locations.” (from Building Clouds, Drifting Walls, Ruth Morrow)

Among the places where the sculpture was placed, was a space in front of the City Hall, in the heart of Sheffield. When after half an hour local police insisted that the object would be removed ASAP, the students of the Sheffield University School of Architecture could personally experience regulations –invisible at first glimpse- that are imposed on public space.

This was the first collaboration between professor Ruth Morrow and City Mine(d), many were to follow.

Van Schoor

Layout of a park with local resident in Schaarbeek, Brussels in April 1997.

The Pavilion neighbourhood is a densely populated and built-up area in the lower parts of Schaarbeek. The population consists mainly of children and young people below the age of 19. But there is hardly, if any, green space in the area. Besides that,the busy traffic allows children not to play on the street on the street, and make even playing on the pavement quite a hazard

Therefore the local residents decided to create their own park on the corner of the Rue de Palais and the Rue Van Schoor. With some rolls of grass, children’s drawings the size of commercial billboards, some benches and a grassy knoll, a piece of wasteland became a park for both children and parents. The park was created without permission of the owners of the land; once it was finished, they allowed it to stay.

Van Schoor was made by the neighbourhood committee,cultural centre the Kriekelaar and the children of Les Petits Pas.

Gallery

Uti Willy

Uti Willy is a direct action strategy for more exciting and tailor made street furniture, devised in February 2000.

Street furniture facilitates the use of public space. Yet it also plays a vital role in a city’s look and even identity. Unfortunately, local residents are not empowered to choose the furniture for their own area. Instead, multi-national corporation decide what cities from Hammerfest to Tarifa and even beyond should look like – preferably all the same, as that helps mass production. Uti Willy was developed for people who want their area to stand out from the crowd. It wants to give everybody the means to use their right to shape their own local environment.

Uti Willy provides a catalogue of easy to do, low (or even no) cost intervention. It does not provide material or equipment, but explains what to do and what is required to obtain a specific result. The catalogue has not been published yet, but interventions have been made. An area was given new signage with hubcaps as carriers; a multi-step method was developed to remove a tile from the pavement and replace it with a micro-garden; and with a piece of wood and two ropes children’s swings were made.

Uti Willy is an ongoing project, to which occasionally new items are added. The catalogue Uti Willy is waiting to be published.

Football Ground

Lay out of a small park with football ground by the local community as a new impulse for development in Anderlecht, April 1998.

The neglect of empty spaces in neighbourhoods, or even their use waste dumps, contributes to a negative representation and reputation of the area. At the same time, those spaces escape the radar of governing authorities, which makes them excellent places to bring people together, to address topical issues, and to take action. And what better action is there than sports, art, song and dance?

Rue des Goujons is fenced off by a 3 metre high steel wall from the arterial road that connects the city centre with the south of the country. In the middle of this residential street an electricity relay stands in the middle of an acre of unused land. From 6 to 11 April 1998, local residents with the help of the local council and a number of social organizations cleaned up the place, and installed benches, playthings, a football ground and a gigantic mural. On Easter Saturday, the new community space was inaugurated with a barbecue, rap performances and a football tournament.

The project brought together local residents and the following organizations: Come-Wijns, Réussir, Maison des Enfants, Le Nekko, Alhambra, Couleurs Jeunes, Arc en Ciel, Agora, Peetermans, Chez Julie, Jong Kureghem, La Rosée and Avicenne.

Gallery