Adhocracy » Urban and Social

Sleeping Area

Mattia Spresian — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 09:19:01 +0000

A series of demolitions of the interior brick walls of an abandoned block in the city center. The demolitions unify the block at the level of a chosen floor. The example we use here is a block defined by the streets Dragatsaniou, Stadiou, Aristidou and Evripidou in Central Athens. The different buildings of the block were not build at the same period and there is no general plan predefining the yards of the block. The unified interior at the level of an upper floor organizes a possible redistribution for the new space. An addition of light metallic stairs is necessary in order that the space functions as a new entity. Architecture happens here as an addition of simple furniture that inhabit the space. Some generic scenography performed by table, beds and their hybrids organize an idiosyncratic furniture occupation of the open space. The project proposes a system of elementary dwelling settings but also installs the rationale of beds in a normal office landscape. The space is defined as a system of protocols; the sleeping area can become an idiosyncratic hotel, a multiple kitchen, a school of dialogue rooms (a transformed university structure) or a “beamer hall”. A hybrid space in between a hotel and an office, the Sleeping Area is programmatically defined by small scale scripts performing in relation to a system of furniture-like objects.

#OccupyGezi Architecture

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 13:06:04 +0000

Herkes İçin Mimarlık (Architecture For All) is a non-profit and independent architecture organization based in Istanbul devoted to offering architectural solutions to social problems, which are faced today in Turkey and beyond. Also, it promotes participatory design process in architecture education.

Sí Se Puede

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:09:07 +0000

This documentary shows a common week of the tireless activities driven by Barcelona‘s Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH). The PAH is the organisation behind Spain’s anti-eviction movement, and has successfully resisted over 1000 evictions since it was founded in 2009. The cameras placed at the heart of the organization depict not only the post-housing bubble drama but most importantly the huge invisible work behind the PAH and the deep process of transformation and empowerment of those who participate in it. Because, those who care of people are taking care of the commons.

Souzy Tros Art Canteen: The Embassy

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 10:02:45 +0000

Under austerity, heavy surveillance and stringent migration policies in the urban space of Athens, a similar space was created on the initiative of artist Maria Papadimitrou, with the help of artists, architects, designers, NGO workers and immigrants. Entitled Souzy Tros, it was established as a food/sewing/art/design space based on the free exchange of labour. Artist Maria Papadimitrou’s equates to a vision of a “coming community”, a community that seems impossible to form but appears in a collective imaginary through everyday life practices.

Crafting Neightbourhoods

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:54:06 +0000

Şişhane district is a 100 years old craft neighbourhood in İstanbul. Since 2006, Made in Şişhane looks at the unmediated design practices and crafts knowledge in the neighbourhood which is threatened by gentrification and state led policies to remove small scale production from the city center to periphery. How does the production process is integrated to the space, and the neighbourhood become a collaborative network? Meet Artin Aharon, one of the local masters, showing us how to take care of the commons with his own hands and experiences.

The Homeless Vehicle

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:51:17 +0000

The Homeless Vehicle Project (1987—89) is a device designed by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko with homeless people in New York. As a designed object this device was not only proposing to solve the accommodation issue of the homeless people but creating a tool also make visible their participation in urban space and their visibility in the context of urban economics. This project is still contemporary in the discussion of process based participatory design as well as current urban segregation in our cities.

Crea.tu

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:41:58 +0000

This toy is the result of mixing young and unemployed talent, digital fabrication and the energy of neighbourhood networks. The main objective of these groups is to support people whose financial situation makes it hard for them to meet their basic food and housing needs. But their initiatives go beyond simply providing assistance. With the support of local small businesses, they have come up with ideas and projects that boost the autonomy of local residents, and even create new types of jobs.

Collective Dictionary

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 09:41:08 +0000

Campus in Camps stems from the recognition that refugee camps in the West Bank are in a process of a social and spatial transformation. Despite adverse political and social conditions Palestinian refugee camps have developed a relatively autonomous and independent social and political space: no longer a simple recipient of humanitarian intervention but rather as an active political subject. This initiative aims at transgressing, without eliminating, the distinction between camp and city, refugee and citizen, center and periphery, theory and practice, teacher and student.

Self-Fashioning Escape Objects

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:53:48 +0000

Maria Papanikolaou’s artworks focus on the fantasy, the act and the attestation of escaping from an oppressive environment. Inspired by her first degree in law and her practice at the felonies’ department of Athens Supreme Court, Maria combines personal testimonies, tales, myths and historical facts in order to create artworks based on fictional escape stories. Throughout history, thousands of people have been trying to escape from slavery, fascist regimes, poverty, war, immigration detention centres and imprisonments of all kinds. In the project Self-Fashioning Escape Objects, she designs the objects these people fashioned themselves in their attempt to escape, using all available materials and ordinary, everyday items in incredible innovative ways.

Suujin Maintenance Club

Mattia Spresian — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 15:03:00 +0000

Initiated in 2008, Research for Architectural Domain (RAD) explores the “Architecture of whereabouts”. Challenging the core ideas that architects try to realize through buildings, RAD inquiries in how can architectural thought be fixed to a vehicle other than “construction”. RAD develops participatory projects, hosts talks and discussions, offering new visions on preservation, sharing and disseminating urban knowledge. By generating a place of freedom for hosting experimental architectural work, RAD is anticipating strategies to adapt architecture to further conditions that aren’t categorised or defined yet.