About the workshop

 

The course investigates awareness of the urban environment. Through pedestrian practice, we can generate data that show the reality of urban space including live and non-living parts in it. To do this students will try to answer the question „How the world of pedestrians looks like?” and reach for an everyday experience and convert it into visual data. Students will work with images, sounds, mental maps. The course introduces students to the context of everyday life activities and bringing their own experience into graphic work toward the benefit of social design and empower pedestrians’ voices in public discussions.

 

Objectives

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• students explore urban space in their neighborhood with a short walk and collect information. Analysis of experiences will be the basis for capturing an interesting aspect of space.

• students learn about data generating through ethnographic and cognitive methods of research;

• students are introduced to the work of
  — „City in motion”, by Dang Thuy Duong
  — Inscriptions en relation — Des traces coloniales aux expressions plurielles
  — The function and form, by Farshid Moussavi
  — Digital cultures, by Milad Doueihi Vredenburg: a documentary on public space and consumption

• students investigate:
  — space seen in motion;
  — biodiversity in city;
  — pedestrian problems;
  — body-based design;

• students develop their own visual communication strategies and design on a chosen theme.

• students will work at the crossroads of design, architecture, art, ethnography, cognitive science.

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Course content

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Course content will be delivered in the form of: 

• class lectures on class lectures on an idea that every space evokes other dimensions and meanings beyond its literal meaning which refer to an ecological approach in urban design and visual quality of the relationship between pedestrian and space,

• class watching/studying and discussions on relevant material to selected topics presented in lectures, and case studies.

• class discussions on student-generated content of learning portfolios and critique of student generated content.

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Portfolio / outcomes

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The works created during the workshop will be socially sensitive and preserving a subjective view of the world at the same time. The design should deliver the viewers a good sense of the pedestrian situation in the city and give them a clear visual message. This is great chance to enhance the meaning of visual environment and have a good project in your portfolio.

 

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Tools

 

scissors, glue, adhesive tape, notebook, pens

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Materials

 

found somewhere in the street – autumn leaves, twigs,
bird’s feather, and similar organic materials
paper sheets, transparent or colourful plastic bags that doesn’t have to be new

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Equipment

 

camera, voice recorder, (it’s enough if your smartphone
take photos with good quality)

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Software

 

Adobe Photoshop