IDW 2019

by Franziska Hederer and Nayari Castillo-Rutz liminal cadaster mapping spaces of transition by Anna and Eugeni Bach multiplicity Liminal or transitional spaces are existing urban environments that show tensions among users and towards their relation to space. They represent zones within different social milieus, antagonist geographical topographies, architectural and urban discrepancies with diverse political claims. Liminal spaces are highly ambivalent: they are not used by people in the way that architects and urban designers have planned them. When we map a city in terms of these thresholds, many elements need to be considered, such as the interplay between personal experiences within the space and the spatial relational phenomena. Tools for perceiving and understanding these liminal spaces offer new ways of dialog, encounters and negotiation. A basic method to investigate liminal spaces is the Liminal Conversation, which is dialogical method and at the same time an instrument of analysis — consist of a facilitated conversation where different users of a given space, come together to start a conversation around problems or diverse viewpoints. This conversation is hosted in-situ, allowing issues to be resolved/addressed on the spot. The workshop will revolt around the mapping of Liminal Spaces. Students would be encouraged to identify the thresholds, use or create tools to understand the space (f.e Liminal Conversation ) and to generate a cadaster (Nolli Map, Parcours etc.) highlighting the characteristics of the different spots. The workshop reflects on the idea of permanent change as a stage of normality – a fluctuating stasis where the direction of the change, or the finality of it, has become indifferent or at least diffuse. Liminality, or the process of becoming something, is stretched in time instead of being a passing moment. We call multiplicity the recognition of the independent character of the parts from the whole. Every element tries to respond to its specific needs and conditions. The relationship between the parts and the whole is collaborative, flexible and imperfect, working not towards a finished product, but as an open system, allowing changes, additions and subtractions. Multiplicity offers a design strategy that addresses change and the idea of becoming instead of being. This workshop introduces multiplicity as a means to interpret the existing world of architecture, art, design, music… as well as a design strategy for new interventions. We invite students to detect situations of change, and investigate strategies of additions and subtractions that modify existing realities into structures that intrinsically allow permanent transformation.